Marching forward

With all due respect and multiple appologies to CCR:

Just got home from (Paradise), lock the front door, oh boy!
Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch.
Imagination sets in, pretty soon I’m singing,

Chorus:
Doo, doo, doo, Looking out my back door.
There’s a giant doing cartwheels,
A statue wearing high heels.
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn.
A dinosaur Victrola listening to Buck Owens.

Chorus

Tambourines and elephants are playing in the band.
Won’t you take a ride on the flying spoon?
Doo, doo doo.
Wond’rous apparition provided by magician.

Chorus

Tambourines and elephants are playing in the band.
Won’t you take a ride on the flying spoon?
Doo, doo doo.
Bother me tomorrow, today, I’ll buy no sorrows.

Chorus

Forward troubles (Paradise), lock the front door, oh boy!
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn.
Bother me tomorrow, today, I’ll buy no sorrows.

Chorus

As for my trip:

I uploaded the dates for my trip (March 7 thru March 28) into the Hawaii Travels website and received a confirmation email that I did not need to quarantine upon arrival.

Got my QR code from Hawaii Travels.gov

Apparently, this might be the last time I need to do this as the Governor of Hawaii has lifted all restrictions for travel to Hawaii from the mainland US. Most likely, they have run out of money to maintain this worthless process and the Federal Government will no longer pay them to pull the wool over the eyes of the citizens of Hawaii trying to make them believe that they are from the government and they are interested in helping.

I still went through the standard TSA circus.

I do not forsee this charade ending anytime in the next decade.

The planes were full both directions.

I flew the “hometown” airlines so I had to make a stop in Honolulu,

In Honolulu, I switched to a smaller plane for the ride to Kona.

but this gave me an opportunity to see many of the other islands from the air.

I saw Southeast Oahu and Diamondhead from the air.

Molokai, Lanai, and Maui.

The volcanoes on the Big Island were shrouded in clouds as I approached,

but I got a good view of the coast line.

I rode the bus to Waiohinu and walked to the property. Halfway there, I was offered a ride. Thank you, Thank you, kind stranger!

Before leaving for Hawaii, I had arranged for a delivery of building materials and they arrived right on schedule.

Then after moving them out of the driveway, I contacted a neighbor named Greg Larsen who has a backhoe

and he came up and helped me out with a couple of rocky humps in the driveway.

He charged me $150.00 per hour with a two hour minimum and we used the entire two hours.

He brought along a jackhammer attachment just in case, but it turned out that we did not need it.

Greg gave me a name and phone number for rock materials. So I ordered a load of 2 1/2″ minus road base rock/sand.

15 tons cost me $450.00.

Now I needed a way to move all these rocks,

so I bought a wheelbarrow.

This took me a few days to spread out on the driveway, but it sure made a big difference.

I practiced singing the old songs “15 tons, what do you get?”

As well as the one about finding a peanut while shoveling coal.

Then it was time for the chipper guys to come and munchup all the branches I had piled along the roadway on my last trip here.

They created more piles for me to move.

All this dirty work really got my clothes dirty. So, it became necessary to take time out for Laundry.

I then spent a good deal of time raising the deck to make it more of a gazebo I could walk under than a deck,

and laying more block on the corner pillars for the gazebo.

I poured a concrete cap on each pillar at the 4 foot height.

I finished removing all the decking from the floor joist to make it easier to lift.

Then I painted all the ceiling joist.

I’ll use wood posts from the concrete caps up to the ceiling joist.

A trip to Hawaii isn’t complete without a trip to the shore.

On my last trip, the State Department of Land and Resources had closed the section of the coast that I like to go to, but this time, it was open.

And the ocean was putting on quite a show.

I found a place along the shore where there was a small rocky “bridge” and the water came under and over and around.

The small pool we like to use to sit in and get refreshed had a sandy bottom and a sandy beach.

Gong through Naalehu, I found that gas prices are on the rise.

Back at the property, I found guavas starting to grow on some of the guava bushes/trees.

After covering the driveway, I used some of the wood chips to make the pathway near the kirchen area easier to walk on.

Even though this trip has been possibly my most expensive trip (other than when we bought the property) I feel that it has been one of my most productive. I got a lot accomplished that I wanted and needed to get accomplished.

I will return again in late April.

TTFN